


Accepted Twice, Rejected Thrice

by BeastOfTheSea



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-24
Updated: 2012-11-24
Packaged: 2017-11-19 09:26:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/571762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeastOfTheSea/pseuds/BeastOfTheSea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two acceptances and three rejections in Nergal's life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Accepted Twice, Rejected Thrice

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer:** Fire Emblem and all related characters belong to Nintendo and Intelligent Systems.

Accepted twice, rejected thrice.

The first rejection came when he had been a young man of eighteen, at the mercy of the whims of his village, despite knowing he was in the right. Elder magic posed no danger to those who used it with care, he had protested - why did it need to be treated in any way different from an axe or knife, when those could be used to kill or maim with as much ease, if not more?

But they had not listened, and he had been forced to leave. It had been that or give up elder magic, and that - that he would never do.

He first found acceptance in Ilia, by the side of the Ice Dragon Aenir. She, unlike the rest of her kind, did not hold aloof from humans; she had always shown generosity and given aid to the feeble and freezing outsiders, many of whom would have perished from cold or starvation without her kindness. He had sought her out, seeking knowledge from a dragon who would not dismiss a human out of hand; he had found a friend, mentor, and companion… and, decades after their first meeting, a wife.

And, for the centuries that followed, he had been happy - the happiest man alive, perhaps. He had his studies; he had a wife whom he loved, and who loved him in return; finally, he had two children, of whom he had been deeply proud. What more could he have wanted? Nothing, save perhaps more knowledge, and he would always be hungry for that…

The second rejection came when the Scouring tore its way across Elibe - when his family was forced to flee Ilia, having no choice but to leave or face the wrath of the mob. It was a battle they could have won. The humans survived off Aenir’s generosity, and the indifference or meager kindness of the other Ice Dragons; had the Ice Dragons so wished, they could have frozen the entire land, leaving their own species untouched and the humans dead to the last man. But they had not wished it, and so - they were driven from the land which had been theirs since the dawn of time, and either forced to flee beyond this world, never to see their homes again - as his children had been - or slaughtered by cheering brutes - as Aenir had been. All because they had been unwilling to use the power that was theirs.

It was a lesson he would not forget.

He found second acceptance in Arcadia, by the side of the Archsage Athos. Athos swore that he had had no idea that dragons were thinking, feeling creatures, and perhaps that separated him from the rest of his kind. He seemed ready enough to do what he could for the dragons once he discovered the error of his ways, and so the man who had lost all to his merciless fellows would let it be. And, though the peace the Arcadians had found was as salt rubbed deep into a never-healed wound to him, he let it be, and said not a word about his own memories.

In the century-and-a-half that followed, he had been very nearly happy - perhaps as happy as he could have been, after all he had lost. But he had not been content. What more could he have wanted? A wife whom he loved and who loved him in return, who lived upon the tallest mountain in Ilia and did not lie dead within a shallow grave in Bern. Children who lived in the land of their birth, whom he could hold in his arms, and who could feel their father and mother’s love, rather than in some alien world beyond the Gate, far from where he could ever reach, and who lived amongst a people who had liked them ill before the war and would not like half-human children any better for what their full-blooded brethren had done. The power to bring Aenir back from death and his children from beyond the Gate, and to gather them to him once more, and to annihilate any who would dare to even attempt to separate them again.

Power…

The third rejection came when Athos and the dragon elders learned of his activities.

He learned, too. He learned that he had had enough of rejection, and that acceptance was not worth the pain. He learned that the world was full of treacherous, grasping fools who would betray him for nothing more than being himself, and he did not need them.

He did not need any of them, really. And perhaps he had never needed them.

The darkness whispered at the back of his mind, and for the first time in a very long life, he listened.

Yes, he had only himself, and he was all he would ever need.

Had there ever been anyone else?

He couldn’t quite remember…


End file.
